Arcane Focuser (Aetheric Realms)
Background ---- Within the city of Rakhaos, one of the youngest city states, lived a skilled human artificer, Hanvis, while he had the ambition of realizing some great discovery for its people, he was in fact capable of creating a lot of small magical wonders that helped the life of its Rakhaos citizens and earned him a place of prominence in the city council, it still was not enough. He had nor realized anything revolutionary. One day a lone traveller get to the city, he was a nice and polite man, dressed with unusual dark clothes, he told to be a travelling scholar and in fact he proved to be expert of many subjects and provide challenging conversation with the wisest citizens. One night, when Hanvis was at his workshop dealing with some theoretical problem for its last invention the Traveller went to visit. It is unknown what the Wondermaker told to the artificer, but a few days after the stranger was gone and Hanvis emerged from his laboratory with a new ambitious project. He was planning to create a machine that can extract magical energy from creation and so allow a massive production bloodstone infused residuum, the base substance of magical creations. He enlisted much of his people to work at the project and soon a great machine emerged near Rakaos docks. While building it the Hanvis was plagued with a single doubt, while the machine in theory will work even a single mistake in the calculation can cause a magical disaster. The wondermaker however have convinced him that he will become famous to his people that his machine will bring new prosperity to the Free Nations. In order to be sure that his work was not lost he wrote his projects and sent them to a friend of him in Freedomguard, as the marine routes to the capital was still safe from the pirates due to the power of the Hegemony. The construction process lasted for almost one year and it consumed most of Hanvis family fortunes and resources from the city. Finally one fated night it was ready, planar energies flowed trough small portals opened by ritual magics while bloodstone pinnacles tapped directly into the leylines. Hanvis entered the building alone, ready for his moment of glory, his dubts dissolved by the impressive for of his machine, within its dhepts the powerful energies roaming trough the structure produced almost deafening roars and the bloodstone spires radiated an messenger red glow, the artificer was inebriated by the power emanated by his masterpiece. He realized too late that in the end he should have listened to his original instincts in the deafening harmonies produced by the machines there was a sudden interruption. Then the accumulated but not well stored magical energy exploded. Protected in the machine core Henvis was left to watch as a massive Bloodstone radiation mixed with wild magic devastated his home town. In the end he the structure collapsed and the artificer met his doom within it. Month later the wondermaker, wearing the guise of a messanger from Rakhaos have given the projects to one of Freedomguard high priests. Thanks to Hanvis past mistakes and Rakaos destruction Freedomguard artificers was capable of creating a stable machine. They called it Arcane Focuser, or Hanvis Machine, and begun to harvest its bloodstone residuum to employ it in ritual magic and arcane item creation on a large scale, increasing the Hegemony power and Free Nation's glory. Nature and Powers ---- The Arcane Focuser is a massive machine composed of rune inscribed metal, stone pillars and tree bloodstone spires included in the structure. Hanvis original machine was built on the land while Freedomguard one is partially immersed in the sea and is using sea water to cool down the mechanisms. Wires and tubes of Bloodstone arcane conductors moves trough the structure and cycle around special chamber where portal magic is used to focus planar energy blocking external planar matter and directing it to the machine core, where the energy is focused into raw Bloodstone that is charged by it and produce a lot of residuum. The Arcane Focuser require a large amount of personal to keep working efficently, both artificers to monitor it and more common workers to mantain the mechanisms and other menial tasks. Within its core a single operator can direct the flux of magic produced by it and shape raw arcane power into powerful rituals (mechanically using ritual magic while accessing to the Arcane Focuser is done with a +5 bonus to the associated skill check, also the full component cost is paied by the machine using its residuum stores). A large amount of low quality, bloodstone tainted residuum is created by the machine this can be employed in low level rituals and creation of macial and quasi magical items. Due to the integration of raw bloodstone into its makeup and the concentration of supernatural energies the land near to an Arcane Focuser suffer from Bloodstone radiations and the people working there tend to contract various kind of mutations. For this reasons the personal working at the machine is not allowed long shifts and the Priesthood use their magic on them to keep the more life threatening mutations in check. Freedomguard Arcane Focuser is well protected by armed soldiers, artificers and priest entering it unhautorized is extremely hard, the structure is ritually shielded and divinations are used to prevent intrusions. Teleportation magic does not work well near to an Arcane Focuser as its natural aura distort magic, the inner part of the building is warded against teleportation. Category:ARArtifacts